I grew up in the Midwest with an alchoholic mother, no father and a fiercely independent spirit. At 18, I defied the advice of virtually everyone who should have cared about me and left for school 1,000 miles away. I intended to return home eventually, but a funny thing happened on the way...
I ended up in an entirely new city, with an entirely new life, a great job, great friends, an adorable boyfriend and a whole new perspective. I also seem to have acquired a 15 year-old along the way...

Thursday, April 18, 2013

I think it goes without saying that it has been a crazy week around here. Everyone is a little bit on edge, there is still a big part of the city shut down, there are periodic blasts of sirens and then explosive waves of rumors that seem to sweep, almost physically, across the city. I hope to never get used to seeing security forces carrying machine guns around town regularly.

And still many more questions than answers.

It is all pretty jarring. I was nowhere near the finish line; I was at work, about a mile and a half away. Like most people in Boston, I know people who were very, very close to the blasts, both as runners and spectators. At least one casual acquaintance was hurt - not seriously - by the second bomb. It's just all a lot to take in, and I find myself unusually emotional over small things as a result.

Mostly, I am angry. There are a lot of people who have spent more time here than I have...people who are much more Bostonian than I am. My closest friends, my husband and his family, most of my coworkers - they are all lifelong Bostonians. But this is home to me, it's home to my Sister, and it's home to my daughters. Technically, I grew up in Chicago, and then in Phoenix...but I've really grown up here. Eight years now...eight wonderful, fulfilling, rewarding years stuffed with people I love and memories that anyone would be lucky to have. And now someone has gone and made that home seem like a much, much scarier place.

Boston is small, and provincial, and dirty, and expensive and cold and snowy. The people can be mean, and trying to find a parking space is impossible. Nightlife is severely lacking and curtailed by a ridiculously early curfew. But that, as they say, is all part of it's charm. And all of those flaws? Well, they are our flaws, and we take communal pride in them.

There has been a lot written about the marathon, and what the marathon means to the city, and for the most part, it is all accurate. The marathon, and Patriot's Day, with its 10:00am Red Sox game, is an integral piece of civic identity. A holiday that we have all to ourselves (and Mainers, I think:-)). It's hard, though, just through reading, to get an appreciation for what the marathon means to the city.

There are six official "Major" Marathons, all of which are in huge cities or international importance. London, New York, Berlin, Tokyo. Even Chicago, a relative baby in the midst of the other cities, is America's third largest city, and nearly four times Boston's size. And then, there is Boston. A regional capital of less than 50 square miles, and barely 600,000 people. A city with no cultural connection to track and field, to distance running, or to the people who compete in those sports.

It's a hard course...runners will tell you it is the hardest of the Majors. That is made harder by the process required just to get to the starting line - it is a straight line course, starting way out in the Western suburbs. Runners show up at the finish, drop their stuff, and then take buses the entire 26 mile length of the course to the starting line. It is also made harder by the incredibly unpredictable weather in mid-April. This year it was 50 degrees and sunny. Last year it was near 90 and dangerously oppressive. In 2007, it poured all day. In 1967, it snowed. SNOWED!

For all of our Revolutionary war history, world-famous education and leading hospitals, there is nothing that brings more outsiders into Boston than the marathon. For the weekend before the race, a beautiful cacophony of accents coming from people in brightly colored race clothes fills the city. The T bustles with runners and their families, restaurants are packed, and strangely, the locals appreciate the influx. If the weather is really nice, there is...and I mean this sincerely...No. Better. Place. On. Earth.

The race itself is huge...25,000 runners or so. It draws many of the very best runners on the planet, respected by all, and considered by Kenyans to be the most prestigious race of the year. Maybe that is the single salient point about the race itself: a country in East Africa which dominates distance running like no other and turns out more elite distance runners than most other nations combined, reveres above all else a race not from a world capital or financial center, but from our tiny, regional hub.

Many of the runners, though, are charity runners...running with numbers that they were given in exchange for raising $5,000 or more for a charity that applied for and was awarded some of these very coveted numbers. The Dana Farber Institute, which is as close to being the "Official Charity of Boston" as possible, was the first organization to be given entries, and now there are about 35 official charities every year, and some other unofficial ones. These are regular people, running in memory or in tribute to those loved and lost, and completing a physical endeavor of almost unimaginable difficulty. It is a major professional athletic event, but it is very much a people's race.

To the million or so spectators who line the course from beginning to end, it is a celebration of the city, of the region, and of the spirit of the runners. We go to watch because it is a nice thing to do, but also because we consider it to be part of our responsibility as Greater Bostonians...all of those visiting runners have to finish and remember the nonstop cheering and support, or else we didn't do a very good job cheering. They inspire us, and we encourage them.

And it is very much a regional event. The other big marathons are all contested within the city limits of the host. In New York, the course is constructed specifically to touch all five Boroughs, and most of the others are designed to cover as much of the city-proper as possible. The Boston Marathon doesn't even enter the city of Boston until the runners near Mile #25. Over 90% of the race is contested outside of the city, which makes the entire event a race to get to Boston. A race to get home.

Students at Boston College, located along the route near mile 21, at the top of Heartbreak Hill, have a well-earned reputation for providing late race encouragement to exhausted runners (or a beer, if you feel like stopping:-)). About halfway through, students at Wellesley College perpetuate the "Scream Tunnel" a near-mile long stretch of top-of-their-lungs cheering for the duration of the race. They all take their responsibilities very seriously.

The Marathon then, is a quintessentially Boston event. It doesn't entirely make sense (Why do we care so much? Why do we run it in April with such unpredictable weather? Why is it at mid-day, instead of early in the morning?) but it is inseparable from our civic fabric. It's not a part of us, it is us.

This is my home, and I care for it deeply. This race, this day, stands for everything that makes me love my home. As attack on that race, and on that day, and on people that I share this wonderful place with, is emotionally crushing. I don't want to think about my home differently. I don't want to look sideways when I next walk into Abe & Louie's and think about an 8 year-old boy dying while his sister loses her leg, or a Chinese student dying halfway around the world from her family. I don't want to think about any of that, but I just don't see how it will ever really be gone.

As a city, we will recover. We'll be bigger and stronger and better. The race will become and even more important part of the fabric of our city. Next year, the demand for entries will be higher than ever, and the spirit of the runners and spectators will be be stronger. But we will never, ever be quite the same.

Friday, April 12, 2013

My little girls turn three on Monday, which is unbelievable both because the time has gone so fast, and also so slowly...

Tomorrow, however, is their birthday party:-). I didn't do first or second birthday parties, partly because I am lazy and partly because I have never really seen the point of having birthday parties for kids who don't know what a birthday is. But now, they definitely get it, they definitely love the idea of a party and they are definitely looking forward to it.

So, combine an hour and a half at Gymboree, a lot of pizza, some cake and a whole mess of children, and you have yourself a birthday party. We invited their friends from school, along with some other people we know that have kids their age...many of whom come in pairs;-) I'm sure that much fun will be had by all!

Now, if I can just figure out a way to tire them out tomorrow morning so that they will take naps in time for the party...

After that, we can start to talk about the absolute mother-effin-bender that we are throwing for Munchkin's graduation. It would be completely factual (if highly exaggerated) to report that the party will require the approval of the US State Department...

Wednesday, April 03, 2013

The small, skinny, 12-year old girl got the news at school. Her teacher excitedly told her that her Grandmother would be coming to get her, and taking her straight to the hospital after school. It was not the first time that the girl's Grandmother had come to get her unexpectedly, but it was probably the first time that the reasons were good.

The girl wondered how she was supposed to pay any attention through her last two periods of the day. How could US History or Chemistry be remotely interesting at a time like this? How could anything else in the whole world matter at a time like this? The minutes crawled by, one by one, until the final bell rang and she was released.

The trip to the hospital was a blur. Her Grandmother talked about the news, but also about school and friends and everything that a Grandmother might talk with her Granddaughter about. But the girl was too excited to answer questions or to listen. The drive seemed interminable, the traffic a cruel joke, and the search for a parking space completely maddening. But finally, after what seemed like weeks, the elevator bell dinged, and they stepped out into a bright hospital hallway. Fighting her desire to run as fast as she could, the girl walked ahead of her Grandmother, counting the rooms one by one until she get to the one she was looking for. Bursting through the door, she saw her stepfather, normally so surly and stern, beaming. Her mother, seven months since her last drink ever, lay in the bed, looking very clearly tired, but the happiest that the girl ever remembered, or would ever remember, seeing her.

And in her arms, swaddled in striped hospital blankets, was the most perfect little baby girl that the World had ever seen. Just a fat little face, and two bright blue eyes barely visible through half-closed lids. The girl fell in love in an instant, and moments later, sitting quietly in a hospital chair holding her new little sister, the girl promised very quietly, to herself, that she would never leave that baby, and that she would never let anyone hurt her.

I did leave her, for a little while. But today, exactly eighteen years after my Grandmother picked me up at school to take me to go meet my new little sister, I think I have done a pretty good job of living up to my promise.

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Yup, today is Munchkin's EIGHTEENTH birthday. My little baby sister, who stopped being a baby a long time ago, is now officially an adult by every measure. That little, tiny lump of perfection, with the heart shaped face and the big blue eyes, is now a brilliant, gorgeous, college-bound, globe-trotting adult with a very real place in the world that she is growing to understand by the day.

In addition to being a symbolically important day, it has some very real importance as well. Most obviously, as of today I am no longer her legal guardian, and I am back to just being her plain old sister:-). I filed my last report with the Illinois family courts last month, and am no longer subject to the supervision (or a potential surprise visit!) of the child services authorities in either Illinois or Massachusetts.

And in the event that something really bad were to happen to me, she is no longer subject to a court's ruling on where she can live...she can pick her own spot. So, a week ago, if I got hit by the proverbial beer truck, her guardianship would have been the subject of a legal ruling (with her brother almost certainly being named her guardian). Today, if the same beer truck hits me, she can make up her own mind on who she wants to live with.

I am probably going to keep an eye out for any beer truck today, just to be safe, but I would be lying if I told you that I hadn't always had a little nagging worry that something would happen to me and she would get swept back to Chicago. I never did get her brother to completely promise to move out here and keep her where she is. But today, none of that matters, because I have a full-fledged adult on my hands!

(Well, except for her education Trust, which she doesn't get control of until she turns 25...hee hee:-))

About Me

I'm 30, and without tooting my own horn, I am wicked cute:-)
I live in a fantastic condo in Boston with my adorable husband (since September of 2009), our twin girls (April, 2010) and my sort-of adopted 17 year old little sister. I am a recent graduate of a fancy-shmancy business school, and I benefit from a lot of fantastic people that treat me like family and give me a lot to be thankful for.
I also have an 12 year old half-sister in Chicago that I wish I saw more!
Stick around and I will tell you some stories:-D Most of them are pretty good, I promise!!!